No products in the cart.
Hopping on the sweet potato trend!
Have you seen that sweet potatoes have been trending recently on social media? There’s a food creator who likes to eat the combination of a roasted sweet potato and cheese as a snack, and then I’ve seen videos of various other creators trying the combo. I haven’t personally tried it, but I can’t imagine it’s bad, especially if you’re a fan of sweet and savory food combinations.
Plus, roasted sweet potatoes are really delicious! In general, it feels like recipes that use sweet potatoes have become more popular in recent years, even if this is a bit of a random trend. I like to roast them in cubes and add them to a rice bowl or a salad, and they’re also good when roasted whole and eaten as a jacket potato (as they’re known in the UK). And, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by the name of this recipe, they are actually phenomenal when baked into a loaf of sweet potato bread.
So what about you? Are you a sweet potato fan? How do you enjoy yours? Let us know in the comments!
Potatoes in bread…weird or genius?
You may be wondering why we would be putting sweet potatoes in bread. And that’s a fair question! It sounds a bit weird, but if you’ve ever had potato bread, you’ll know that it’s super soft and delicious. We have our own recipe for regular potato bread here, and I can’t tell you how yummy it is. The potato adds extra starch and moisture to the loaf, so it really just turns out so fluffy and soft.
This recipe then inspired us to create a beet bread recipe for Valentine’s Day, which also has the added sweetness and moisture from the beets. Plus, it’s a beautiful pink color, which makes it perfect for a celebration or just a fun way to impress your family!
Want to read more about why potatoes make bread so soft? Here’s a great blog post from King Arthur baking!
Soft and sweet loaf
That brings us to today’s recipe. We thought, with the successful potato and beet loaves, why not make a sweet potato bread? With the sweetness from the sweet potato, it would probably give a very well-balanced flavor to the loaf. And that’s exactly what happened! This is a lovely and soft loaf, with flavor and color that almost reminds you of brioche. Although we won’t claim that this is a replacement for brioche, as it’s definitely not. The best part is that you can top it with sweet or savory toppings and it’s super tasty! So, without further ado, here’s our recipe for sweet potato bread.
Ingredients you’ll need
For this loaf, you’ll need sweet potatoes, milk, yeast, all-purpose or bread flour, and salt. We just use regular orange sweet potatoes, but you could try replacing them with a white or a purple one if that’s what you like. We use regular cow’s milk, but a non-dairy replacement would work just fine.
Other than that, it’s just yeast, flour, and salt. We don’t add sugar because the sweet potatoes have enough sugar to add the right flavor, color, and texture to the bread. You could always experiment with various add-ins to the loaf: grated cheese (if you’re a fan of the sweet potato and cheese flavor combo), chocolate chips, cinnamon sugar (especially if you like a sweet potato Thanksgiving casserole), or even dried fruit.
How to make sweet potato bread
Start by boiling or roasting the sweet potatoes until tender and mashable. If you enjoy eating mashed sweet potatoes and ever find yourself with leftovers, this is a good recipe to save for that as well! Then, just combine the yeast and warm milk in a bowl, letting it bloom if needed.
Combine the milk and yeast with the mashed sweet potatoes, flour, and salt. Knead this, either in a stand mixer or by hand, until no longer sticky and nice and smooth. Keep in mind that the amount of flour you’ll need might vary depending on the type of sweet potato, how much moisture it retains from boiling/roasting, and other factors like humidity and temperature. Let this rise until about doubled in size.
Shape the dough by pressing it into a rectangle and rolling it up tightly. Place it in a loaf pan and let it rise again until doubled in size. Then, it’s time to bake! We brush it with a simple milk wash, then bake it. Once it’s lightly brown on top and sounds hollow when you tap it, it’s done. Then you should just let it cool at least for 30 minutes until cutting into it. We hope you try it out!
Sweet Potato Bread
A delicious loaf of sweet potato bread that's soft, fluffy, moist, and slightly sweet. A veggie has never tasted this good!
Ingredients
- 120 ml milk
- 2 tsp (2.5 tsp active dry yeast, 17.5g fresh yeast)
- 550 grams bread flour or all purpose flour
- 350 grams boiled and mashed/riced sweet potatoes (~2 medium potatoes, 1 large) *weight is calculated after ricing/mashing the boiled potatoes!
- 1½ tsp salt
- Milk for milk wash
Instructions
- Peel and wash 2 medium sized sweet potatoes, or 1 large one; we like to cut ours into smaller, 1 inch sized pieces so they boil faster as well.
- Place the sweet potato pieces in a pot with cold water; bring to a boil on the stove and boil the potatoes until tender, about 10-15 minutes.
- Drain the sweet potatoes and mash or pass through a potato ricer to get a smooth consistency with no lumps. Let cool slightly before using.
- Heat up the milk, either in the microwave or in a saucepan, until it is "fingervarm" (finger warm), meaning it should feel warm to the touch but not hot. You don’t want to kill the yeast! Add the fresh yeast or active dry yeast and a tiny bit of sugar (not included in the measurements) and stir to dissolve. Let it rest 5-10 minutes until it begins to froth and bubble a little bit. (If your yeast doesn’t do anything, it may be expired. Check the expiration date on the package and start over with new yeast!) If you're using instant yeast, you can add it directly to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients instead of following this step.
- Add the flour, salt, sweet potato, milk/yeast mixture (or the milk and instant yeast separately) to the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl.
- Knead in the stand mixer using the dough hook for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. If kneading by hand, combine roughly in the bowl and turn out onto a clean work surface to continue kneading. Note: you may have to add a little more water or a little more flour if your dough is either too dry or too sticky. Adjust until the dough releases from the edges of the bowl, doesn't stick to your hands, and there are no dry bits at the bottom of the bowl!
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a damp dish towel and let rise for 45 minutes in a warm spot or until doubled in size/passes the poke test (when you poke the dough, it creates an indentation without springing back immediately).
- Prepare a large 2 lb loaf tin by oiling the bottom and/or adding a sheet of parchment paper across the long edge of the tin, so that the paper hangs over the edge for easy removal!
- Once it has doubled in size, remove the dough from the bowl onto a clean work surface. Press the dough into a rough rectangle, no wider than the length of your loaf pan.
- Roll up the dough tightly (along the short edge of the rectangle) until you have a log.
- Pinch together the seam at the bottom of the dough log. Now place the seam on your work surface and gently roll the dough log in circles to create tension and help close the seam.
- Place the dough log into the prepared loaf tin, with the seam side down.
- Cover the dough and allow to rise for another 45 minutes in a warm place until doubled in size. If using plastic wrap to cover it, we would recommend oiling the plastic where it will touch the dough so that it doesn't stick! In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350 F (176 C).
- Once the loaf has risen, remove the cover and brush the top with milk.
- Bake for around 40 minutes or until evenly golden brown; you can also tap the loaf and if it sounds hollow, it should be baked all the way through!
- Let the loaf cool for at least 30 minutes to an hour before slicing. Enjoy!
Good morning,
The sweet potato bread sounds amazing, what size loaf pan do you recommend?
Thank you, hope you get to try it out! We use a large 2lb capacity loaf pan, which I’ll add to the recipe right now 😊